No to Lisbon, No to Youth Media for Europe

By Mike Bray

As you may have noticed on this blog there have been very few articles on Libertas or any of their candidates. While there have been some, the quotes used in the articles about the party, which first emerged as the No voice during the Lisbon Treaty referendum, had been sourced from other media outlets were candidates for Libertas have been interview.

My team and I in the East have tied to get in contacted with the former IFA vice-president, Mr. Raymond O’Malley, who is running in the East for Libertas. I want to make it clear that we are not ignoring Libertas or Mr. O’Malley. A source suggested recently that the reason for there been no contact between Youth Media for Europe and Libertas was because of one of our mother organisations, European Movement Ireland, which would be a pro-European Union organisation.
Last Wednesday morning after the debate between the candidates in the East on the Today with Pat Kenny radio show I had my first opportunity to meet Mr. O’Malley. He was speaking with some of the other audience members so I approached a member of Mr. O’Malley’s team. Basically I was looking to do an interview with Mr. O’Malley whenever it was of convenience to him. After a conversation with an O’Malley team member, where an interview was point blank refused, he came up with the following statement, “Mr. O’Malley is too busy and does not believe in the objectivity of the European Movement”. When I asked the O’Malley team member if I could speak to Mr. O’Malley personally, I was also refused.

The European Movement were surprised at the decision by Mr.O'Malley to refuse an interview seeing as some of his other Libertas colleagues have been in contact with the teams in the other constituencies. "It is a pity that Mr. O’Malley has taken this stance given that Mr. Ganley has conducted an interview with another of our journalists and my understanding its that Ms.Simons has done the same with the Dublin team. We always try to be impartial and aim to get the truth out" said Andrea Pappin, Executive Director of the European Movement.